Merry (almost) Christmas! Things have been moving slowly but surely for me in terms of building the DVD/Bluray for J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. Never before have I encountered so many bugs and errors trying to put a project together. Each disc for each format requires a separate project, so that's 4 projects with 8 hours of content. 10 hours if you count Durin's Folk. A lot can (and will) go wrong with that much content. But it's coming soon, I promise! Here's a first look at the menus I've designed for the fan edit. They will look identical on both DVD and Bluray.

An unfortunate casualty of all of this is that I will not be able to include subtitles in the Bluray/DVD release. The software I use for disc authoring (Adobe Encore) continually crashes across multiple platforms and versions when importing subtitles. When I am able to get them imported, they have serious syncing issues. It's a known bug with larger projects like this and sadly the program is no longer supported by Adobe. The only comparable disc authoring program out there is Sonic Scenarist and it costs around $35,000, so that's not an option.

SO. I apologize to those of you that were hoping for subtitles, but I'm just not going to be able to include them in the DVD/Blurays. There may be ways to add subtitles to ISOs after the fact, so I will eventually make a page on my website where you can download the subtitle files and add them to the project yourselves. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Merry Christmas Dustin! Thanks for all your hours of work!! I feel like the digital release was like how the film should have been in theaters, and now we are awaiting the film to come out on DVD officially!! Thank you for making this the Hobbit movie that can be shown proudly with the Lord of the Rings films. Merry Christmas!!

You had said that the inclusion of subtitles was the reason you couldn't fix certain mistakes that had still managed to make their way into the final edit. Mistakes that were pointed out by followers of your work in the comments of a recent blog post.

Now the absence of the subtitles perhaps affords you the opportunity to fix those issues in time for the Blu Ray release!

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Dustin

12/25/2015 03:20:44 pm

Hi Daniel! I've managed to correct some of the more common complaints with the DVD/Bluray release. Most notably, I've dialed back the color correction at the beginning of the film since a lot of people felt it was too de-saturated. I've also de-bloomed most of the footage from BOFA.

In all, the actual edits have not changed. I just received the last portion of the completed English subtitles from my volunteers, and wouldn't want to have them go back and fix all the timestamps because of a few minor changes. I will be sending the English subs to my foreign language volunteers soon for them to translate!

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Dante

12/25/2015 04:47:49 pm

I thought that there would be no subtitles?

Peter

12/30/2015 07:39:00 am

Thank you Dustin, just send them over and I'll start my work to translate!

Max

12/24/2015 03:53:33 pm

In the other post you mentioned how you planned on fixing the color corrections that people had commented on. Are there any other changes between your previous release and this one? I remember the two things people brought up a lot were including the Mirkwood EE scene in some fashion (extras/whatever) and touching up the transition on the Eagles.

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Dustin

12/25/2015 03:22:45 pm

I have fixed the color correction so it's not as drastic at the beginning of the film, yes. I have not added the Mirkwood EE scene, and the AUJ/DOS transition is the same as it was before. Couldn't really do much else with it considering what I had to work with.

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Max

12/25/2015 06:07:45 pm

would you consider making a download of that scene color corrected to match the rest of the movie so people could splice it in if they so chose?

Sean

12/24/2015 08:11:13 pm

Thanks for all the hard work and I am looking forward to the Blu-ray. Many people seem to be focusing on various issues they have visually with the edit (color correction, missing scenes, etc.). My question from the screenshots: is there only lossy 5.1 audio on the Blu-ray? If so, that seems like kind of a glaring omission. It (kind of) made sense on the digital download to keep the size down. Since you indicated that "This fan edit has been created using only the highest-quality media available", I guess I'm wondering why the Blu-ray reference release is not getting the lossless 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track. The difference is noticeable if you have a decent home theater set up. You previously indicated that the Blu-ray ISOs were in the 30GB range, so there is obviously plenty of room on the 50 GB BD-R DL disc. To me this is not a question about the substance and quality of your work, it is a technical question to which the answer eludes me.

For that matter, are both of them even Dolby Digital, or is there a further downmix? You mentioned that the menus "will look identical on both DVD and Bluray" so that's not it. (The screenshot for Disc 1 says "5.1 Dolby Digital", while the screenshot for Disc 2 says "5.1 Surround Sound.")

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Dustin

12/25/2015 03:38:05 pm

Hi Sean, the 5.1 is proper Dolby Digital, yes. I mislabeled that in the menu, good eyes! I did not edit this film using 7.1 as the source, since I believe 7.1 is overkill anyways. My editing software does not have an output option for DTS-HD, so Dolby Digital 5.1 is what we'll have.

As for the Bluray ISOs, they will be a combined 70GB.

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Dante

12/25/2015 04:49:46 pm

How large will the DVD ISOs be?

Brad

12/25/2015 02:04:22 pm

Merry Christmas Dustin, and thanks for all the hard work. You stated before that subtitles were the reason new scenes couldn't be added in. Now that those are out of the equation how do you feel about the inclusion of the mirkwood extended edition scenes? Just a thought

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Daniel

12/25/2015 02:08:02 pm

REALLY appreciate all of your hard work here. Between your incredible efforts and Harmy's despecialized Star Wars editions, a fan can truly have the best available. Thank you.

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Eric

12/25/2015 02:26:21 pm

hmph. seems a lot of people want to see mirkwood extended scenes added in judging from the previous comments. Seems like it would be a good addition as it certainly offers a better reason for the company losing the path. If I can recall the enchanted river, the stag, and carrying bombur while getting lost were all in the book. I actually think this would improve the pacing as it as an adventure story not a series of action set pieces. Either way fantastic work and ill certainly keep an eye on this sites future projects.

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Jonathan

12/25/2015 03:30:10 pm

I'm for extending the project indefinitely, just keep working on it forever ;D

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Dustin

12/25/2015 03:42:04 pm

Hi Eric, I know some people would like to see that Mirkwood EE scene, but like I've said previously, the scene just didn't work for me. It's too slow and does nothing to move the story along. Personally I was disappointed with how PJ handled Mirkwood altogether...the book made it seem so much darker and creepier.

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Jonathan

12/25/2015 03:40:33 pm

Menus look great by the way, can't wait to give this to my mom and pop. They were so disappointed with the original three turned out, and now they'll have a respectful, appropriate, and above all concise and coherent version of the story to put next to their extended Lotr DVD's. And I think menus will just help even more in making it feel like its the "real thing" you know :)

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Michael

12/27/2015 05:50:56 am

The only download you offered that works for me is the audio only, do you have any idea as to why this was?, i am really excited to see this but frustrated that i cant actually SEE it. thanks

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Dustin

12/27/2015 07:11:44 am

The torrent links are still active, but the MEGA links were taken down due to copyright flagging. Simply download the torrent file and open it using BitTorrent, uTorrent or a similar program.

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Primmulla

12/27/2015 12:39:58 pm

It is a pity the MEGA link is not working anymore, could you re-upload the film on some other file sharing service? I would love to see the fan edit, but torrents are not allowed in my country since they upload stuff while downloading and uploading copyrighted files is illegal where I live. Unfortunately, in case of torrents it is technically impossible to disable uploading :(

Skippan

12/30/2015 01:35:37 pm

Anyone knows how to use the newly provided .txt subtitles? They're not in .srt time format.
And Dustin, if you read this we'll appreciate a lot if you share the subtitle file for the whole film

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Dustin

12/30/2015 03:03:49 pm

I'll try to get SRT versions together. There may be a simple way to convert them however...I'm not sure. At any rate, there are only subtitles for the DVD/Bluray versions of the film- not the digital version. That's because the film is split across two discs and there are two separate lines of timestamps for each subtitle file.

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morgoth

1/3/2016 08:31:34 am

Dustin, I love the box and the disc art, but I was wondering is there a program in which I can print the disc art onto my blu ray-r's? also, is there a way I can size the box art so that I can have it fit into my blu ray case? Thanks again for what you did here I truly cannot wait to see this masterpiece!!

Gal

1/1/2016 08:38:35 am

Thank you for your hard work Dustin. I have to say this is by far the best Hobbit cut I've ever seen. Almost everything that has bothered me in the original cuts is gone and every scene make sense, even though you cut the movies in half. Impressive work!

The only thing I didn't like was that there aren't enough peaceful moments in the movie. The balance between action and peacful moments is what made the LOTR great in my opinion. There was plenty of action, but there was enough time between action scenes.
In The Hobbit the action basically doesn't stop once the company reaches the Misty Mountains and I honestly felt a bit dizzy towards the end. It would be fine if the movie was shorter, but it's over 4 hours long and a movie this long needs some slower parts in my opinion.
One way to achieve this would be to cut the orc attack at the barrel escape and change the barrel ride from an action scene to a peaceful escape. It would greatly improve that part of the movie because the barrel chase also happens to be some of the worst CGI in the movie. I know you said this was your final cut (and it's a great cut!), but will you at least give it some thought?

And while there's too much action once we reach the Misty Mountains, the opening is very slow. I'm not suggesting any drastic cuts, but have you considered cutting the "blunt the knives" scene? I know it's in the book and the book fans like it, but it really doesn't bring anything to the movie in my opinion.

Having said all that, I'm really looking forward to the DVDs! They will be a perfect addition to my collection and I'll finally be able to include The Hobbit in my Middle-earth marathon.